Wishes
by Herena Mizuno
Summary: An overdone plot, but I couldn't resist. Hotaru and various other senshi are granted their wishes.
1. Default Chapter

Wishes  
By: Mizuno Herena   
  
  
Disclaimer: (To the tune of Jingle Bells)Sailor Moon, Sailor Moon  
Own you- I do not  
I really, really wish I did  
But Naoko Takeuchi does!  
(To quote a good friend, "Okay, it's a lousy song; But it's MY lousy song.")  
Rating: PG for mild language (If you can watch TV, you can read the fic)  
Warning: This is my first FanFic, so please be kind. Also, I know it's a VERY used plot line. But I couldn't help it!!!! Okay, I'm beginning to sound like DiC's sadly dubbed version of our beloved Usagi. Meaning: I'll quit whining and start writing.  
  
  
It was springtime in Tokyo, when pink cherry blossoms covered the once-skeleton trees in the parks and the grass was so thick and green that you'd swear it was carpet. The multicolored buds on the flowers were just waking to the sun's gentle rays in their garden, next to the playgrounds. Children laughed as they plummeted down the slides and flew in the swings. Little girls giggled as they kissed their first crush on the cheek and ran away, embarrassed. Little boys gave an adorable look of (mock) disgust whenever the "L" word was mentioned and denied any interest in the opposite sex. Couples held hands and kissed respectfully under pagodas covered in dark emerald ivy. Yes, indeed the signs of spring-love were everywhere.  
It was at this time, when everyone should have been happiest, that a small, raven-haired girl sat. Lonely and depressed on the rim of a fountain in the center of the Shibuya Area Park, she seemed to stare at the sun without blinking. Her striking violet eyes cast down at the water. A passer-by might have guessed her age to be about fourteen, and her life to have been a dull one. In reality she had just turned eighteen and her life was anything but dull.   
Tomoe Hotaru suffered through a life that the normal teenager would crumble before. While any other seventeen-year-old girl would be shopping on a beautiful Sunday, Hotaru was probably fighting a youma. The common girl would be hanging out with friends. She was waiting for her best friend to be born in a few centuries. Ordinary girls think about what shoes would go best with their purse. Hotaru thought about how long she had left to live in her present body. Being the Senshi of Saturn, Death, Destruction, Silence, and Rebirth was very time consuming, not to mention hard to say. Who had time to think of pleasant things when there was always some dark force to overcome?  
But the thing that worried her most wasn't her weak nature, it wasn't even that she had a mad scientist for a father somewhere, that her Setsuna-mama was always busy guarding the Gates of Time, or that her Michiru-mama and Haruka-papa were constantly on concert tours. The thing that bothered Hotaru the most was love or rather the lack of it.  
Often, on Saturday nights she would have dinner at the Chiba's residence. She would glance across the table at Mamoru and see his eyes lovingly transfixed on his wife, Usagi. He would do anything for her. After supper they would sit by their fireplace and Usagi would read stories to her captive audience. No matter how old Hotaru got, her favorite stories were always the faery tales. Every time the odangoed girl would reach the description of the handsome prince she would always describe Mamoru instead, and then add with a look toward her prince, "Just like you."  
How badly she wanted that... That love that could survive through every trial, every obstacle, and every test. Especially the worst test of all....Time. It seemed that everyone had it but her.   
After romantic and short engagement, Ami was to be married to Urawa in a few weeks. Makoto was (not so) secretly seeing her cooking professor, Usami Saori. Rei had fallen for an American named Geoffrey Foster who dated her through the technology of the holo-net. Surprisingly, Minako gave up stardom and settled down with a rising computer programmer, Matsumiya Kyoko. Of course, Michiru and Haruka were still an item and even Setsuna had been seen hanging around the Gates of Time with a mysterious significant other. Was Hotaru the only one in the universe doomed to a lonely existence?  
The late-afternoon sun was beginning to beat down on the pale girl sitting on the fountain. Her cup of ice cream had already melted into a mush of melted goop. Hotaru picked a chocolate-chip out of the soup and threw the styrofoam cup away. She had better get home soon. The previous day's homework was not yet finished and she was already utterly fatigued.  
What she didn't know was that as she walked from the park's center to the parking lot a pair of dark green eyes followed her every step.  
Tsukino Shingo watched his classmate (she had skipped a grade) quietly walk over the pebbled walkway and step into her small black car. He had been watching her since the first time he saw her throw a yen into the clear water at the feet of the marble angel that stood the fountain's center. That was three months ago.  
The sight of a seventeen-year-old girl making a wish like a little girl entranced him and he couldn't get his mind off her since. What did she wish for? Why did she come to the same place in the same park every day? Did she ever see him watching her? Why was she so sad? What ever it was, he wanted more than any thing to make her smile. He wanted to make everything better, so she'd always smile- for him.  
Every day since then Shingo had come to see her make her wish and sit in the warm sun. He had seen her try to sit under a magnificent willow tree once; only to be cast out of her shade by a horde of angry ants. He had watched her kiss a little boy's skinned knee after he had fallen in a game of chase. He had been there to see her eat four chocolate-chip ice creams by herself and run home with a stomachache. What made him come there every day, he didn't know. But he knew if he didn't get to see her that day, then the sun wouldn't rise in the morning and the moon's glow would grow dull.  
Silently he watched her drive away. When he was sure that she wasn't coming back, Shingo walked over to the fountain and tossed his own yen in the pool. "Let her like me.." he sighed under his breath, "Just let her like me."  
  
***  
  
Ding-dong!!  
"Shingo," Mamoru said as he opened the door, though it took him a moment. He could never get over the resemblance of his old friend, Motoki that the boy had grown into. "We're so glad you could come. Usagi's been preparing food all day!"   
"Shingo!! Shingo, Shingo, SHINGO!!!" Usagi bound into the room, tackling her little brother in a bear hug. Ever since she had moved in with Mamo-chan she had become closer to her sibling than ever before. "Where were you? We were worried sick! Oh, it doesn't matter 'cause we really weren't. How's Mom? How's Dad? How's school? Do you have a girlfriend, yet? Where did you get those shoes? Do you think they carry them in my size? Do you like take-out? We're not having take-out. Do you want something to drink? Mamo-chan, get him something to drink, would you? What do you want to drink? Well?.?.?.?."  
At this Mamoru and Shingo exchanged glances and fell over, laughing hysterically, while Usagi continued questioning them on their behavior. Eventually the three calmed and sat down for an early dinner on the back patio. But Usagi, smelling a burning dessert ran back into the kitchen to save what she could of the apple pie.  
"We'll wait on you, Usako!" Mamoru called from the table.  
"Don't bother! It'll take a while to fix this; I don't want the meal to get cold!" She called back. Usagi was very new at the role of being a housewife, but in Mamoru's eyes she couldn't have made a better one. The couple, however, had become used to the taste of take-out since it saved them from the chance of food poisoning. On this day she had decided to try to cook one thing for her little brother and she was determined that it would not be ruined.  
The one thing she didn't realize was that Mamoru and Shingo would be left at the table feeling unusually uncomfortable and quiet. Usagi was skilled in the art of conversation. If she were sitting at a table with a cat and a mouse she could find a good topic of conversation. With her in the kitchen the two men sat uneasily trying to think of something to say.  
"So, Shingo. It's been a while since I've seen you. Tell me, what's up." Mamoru asked at his young brother-in-law sensing a change in him that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Then again it was probably just the nervousness.  
"Oh, nothing. Just the usual: study till two a.m., get three hours of sleep, school, school, school, work, work, work, and oh yeah, then there's school." The teenager thought about telling this man about her. Hotaru. Tomoe Hotaru. The very name ran chills up his spine.   
Mamoru could keep his secret; he was sure. His sister had trusted this man enough to marry him. Yes, that meant he could trust him, too. Then again, what would he say? Would he laugh at a schoolboy's crush? Would he give him a long lecture on dating and how to treat her? Would he tell her? Would she laugh? No.. It's just not worth taking the risk.  
"Heheh.." Mamoru chuckled. Yep, he was hiding something all right. What if it was something dangerous? What if something happened to him? Mamoru didn't know the boy very well, but there was no way he'd ever let something bad happen to someone Usagi loved. Nah. He was over-reacting. Shingo probably got a bad grade on a test. But... If there was something and he said something. No.. Shingo would probably think he was crazy. And then he'd never come to visit and they'd never get to be real family. No.. Don't ask. It's just not worth taking the risk.   
"Apple Pie!" Usagi's voice broke the silence as she entered the room with the perfect fruit delicacy in her hands.  
  
***  
  
At the same time, out side of the city in a small farmhouse, Hotaru sat alone doing her homework at her kitchen table with a bowl of Nihon Soba.  
"Let's see," she worked her problem aloud. "If we take away the square root of pi and divide by nine the answer will have to be... Impossible To Find!!!  
"This is crazy." She threw her calculator across the room and flinched when it hit the wall.  
"You have to promise to take extra-special care of this calculator! Do you know how much it costs?!" Haruka-papa's voice rang clearly in her head as if she were in the room.  
Reluctantly, Hotaru got up to check the small, black machine. Her thumb gently touched the ON button. Nothing. She pressed it again, harder this time. Still nothing. Her eyes widened. She pressed it again. Tears began to fill up. And again. Her head began to throb. And again. Until finally her thumb was red and almost bruised from pressing the damn button.  
"UUuuurRRrrrAAAgggGGHHHhhhh!!!!!!" No! This was not happening! She could not do Advanced AP Calculus with only a pencil and notebook paper! Well, she had to now. Her day had been like this since she woke up. She had burnt her breakfast. On the way to her daily ritual at the park she had had a flat tire. When she had returned home the answering machine announced that Michiru-mama and Haruka-papa where going to be in England for a few more days. Why did everything have to happen to her?  
Slowly the raven haired girl shrugged back over to the table, removed her purple binder from her backpack, and began tearing out every used sheet of paper in search of a clean one. Eventually she got to one. She forced her hand to pick up her no.2 pencil and touch the paper. But as suddenly as her pencil made contact with the sheet the lead broke. The small woman collapsed in a fit of tears.  
Hotaru cried for her endless amount of life and for the life that she'd never have, for her father, for her duty as a senshi, for the love that she'd never know. Finally, the girl fell asleep on top of her tear-soaked couch and, for the first time in her life, wished that she had never been Sailor Saturn.  



	2. The Results

The morning sun entered the room, warming everything with her long fingers. Hotaru's eyes opened as the temperate rays reached her face. Sighing, she looked at the clock on top of the fireplace. 8:00! If she hurried she could just make it to school on time. She ran to her room and slipped on her black stockings and her school uniform. She looked at herself in the mirror. Remarkably, her face wasn't red from last night's crying session. Well, at least something good happened today. Quickly, she left the house and made her way toward her high school.  
"Miss Tomoe, you are late." The teacher snapped as she entered her classroom. Her clock must have been wrong at home.  
"Gomen nasai, Sensei Kishimura. I promise that this will be the last time." Oh no, she was really going to get it now. Hotaru's eyes cast down with shame as she bowed to her teacher.  
"Well, I'm sure you have a perfectly good reason. Just don't let it happen again." He smiled at her. "You may take your seat now."  
What?! No reprimand? No yelling? No embarrassment in front of her peers? Whatever was wrong with Sensei Kishimura she wanted to stay wrong! Quietly, Hotaru took her usual seat in the back of the room.  
"Hotaru-chan, why are you sitting back there?" A girl Hotaru recognized as Hinto Sakuya whispered back to her. Sakuya was the most popular girl in the school, why was she talking to her- like a friend?  
"Well I just always have, I guess." Hotaru whispered back, preparing herself for a cruel joke.  
"Oh, come on.. You're not mad at me, are you? Come sit with me..."  
Oh, this was low! Hotaru knew that she, herself was probably the least popular girl in school. But this....this, toying with her emotions like that. People can be so cruel.  
"I think I'll stay back here, thanks." Better to be safe than sorry.  
"But Hotaru-chan..."  
"I wish some girls in the back of the classroom would continue their discussion after class." Sensei Kishimura commented rather kindly.  
This was not right! People being nice to her? Even the teacher?  
The class continued on quite normally after that, other than the fact that she was called upon quite frequently and the class paid attention when she spoke. And when the teacher found out that she didn't have her homework, he simply told her to bring it in the next day for a late-grade, almost as if she was the teacher's pet or something. And when the class ended for break, a group of the most popular students gathered around her desk to give her the most recent gossip.  
The entire day was like that. Even Tsukino Shingo sat next to her at lunch, and her "friends" talked about him as if he was her boyfriend. In fact Sakuya, Arisu, and Ayeka made plans to go to the mall with her as if it was the most normal thing in the world. But the thing that astounded Hotaru the most was that at the end of the day, there was no joke. No one said anything to her to make her humiliated and no one laughed at her. This was the best day of her life.  
Hotaru drove home with newfound happiness. She had to call the other Senshi even if this did turn out to be a joke. She picked up the phone by her bedside and dialed Usagi first.  
Brrring...Brrring...Brrring. "Moshi, moshi! You have reached the residence of Chiba Mamoru and Usagi. I'm sorry we're not home right now, but-"  
Hotaru hung up. She hated talking to machines more than anything.  
Ami would defiantly be home. Hotaru knew she liked to have tea about this time.  
Brrring...Brrring...Brrring...Brrring...........  
She let it ring a few more times before she hung up. Basically the same things happened when she tried to call the others too. This day was beginning to get stranger and stranger.  
"Come out of it, Hotaru." She thought to herself, "Tomorrow this will all turn out to be a big trick and everyone will laugh at the thought that you even thought you had friends."  
Brrring!!!  
This time the ringing belonged to the phone she held in her hand. She was so surprised to actually get a call that she almost dropped the phone.  
"Moshi, moshi." She said into the speaker uncertainly.  
"Hotaru?"  
"Yes, who's speaking, please."  
"It's me, Shingo." Shingo was calling her? Why?  
"Yeah, hi Shingo. Why are you calling?"  
"I have to have a reason to call you?"  
"Umm, well no. That's not what I meant. I mean-"  
"No, I just wanted to hear your voice. Don't apologize." Just wanted to hear her voice? What kind of prank call was this?  
"Is this come kind of joke, Shingo? I didn't think you would be in on this, too."  
"What?! No! What do you mean? I'd never give you a prank call." Maybe he was serious about this. Maybe this day wasn't a joke. Maybe her classmates had decided to give her a chance.  
"No, I'm sorry. I've just had a confusing day. It's was nice of you to call, Shingo."  
"Listen, do you wanna go somewhere?" What? Was he asking her on a date? Na... He just wanted to go somewhere. She shouldn't let it go to her head.  
"Somewhere?"  
"Yeah, I thought you might like to go to the park with me. Well me and my family. We're having a picnic at the park down in Shibuya."  
"Yeah, I'd love to come." That's probably where Usagi and Mamoru were.  
"Umm.. I can't pick you up now. But can you meet us at the center fountain at 6:00?" That was her fountain. Hotaru smiled; for some reason this felt special, as if this was the way it was supposed to be.  
"Sure, I'll see you there. Ja ne!" She hung up the phone quietly and let a huge, deafening "YIPPEE!!" follow.  
  
***  
  
Hotaru showed up at the fountain at precisely 6:00 wearing a knee length black skirt, a black spaghetti-strap top, and tennis shoes. She wanted to make sure that she wasn't over or under dressed. Everything had to be perfect. In accordance with her daily ritual, she tossed a yen in the fountain's basin of flowing water and made the same wish she made every day.  
When she turned back around, Shingo was standing right in front of her with a purple rose in his hand for her.  
"I remembered that it was your favorite color." He said as he handed it to her.  
Tears began to fill Hotaru's eyes. It really was her favorite color. Most people thought that it was black, though, and the fact that he cared enough to know touched her. "You really need a reality check," Hotaru thought to herself. "If what makes you get teary isn't the fact that a HOT guy gave you a rose, but that he knows your favorite color." She quickly brushed the tears from her violet eyes and gave Shingo a tight hug. She couldn't find any words to thank him with so it would have to do.  
"Where's Usagi-chan and Mamoru?" She wanted to change the subject as quickly as possible.  
"You know my sister?" Shingo's surprise was evident on his face.  
"Well, yeah. We've been friends for a while." Okay... What was with him?  
"Wow, you learn something new every day. Anyway... Hotaru, I'd like to introduce you to my parents, Tsukino Kenji and Ikuko." Hotaru and the couple gave each other small bows and shook hands.  
"Yes, we met at Usagi's Christmas party." She smiled to the couple.  
"Usagi's Christmas party?" Mr. and Mrs. Tsukino seemed a bit confused as well as Shingo. "But Usagi didn't have a party last year."  
"Of course she did, don't you remember? That's when Urawa proposed to Ami."  
"Ami's engaged?!"  
"Well, yes. Of, course... You don't remember any of this, do you?"  
"I'm afraid not, dear." Ikuko was very kind to Hotaru, even though Hotaru could tell that both she and her husband had thought she had gone crazy. But she wasn't! She could remember that night as clearly as if it were yesterday. There had been a hired photographer and everything. Pictures of night alone took up four pages -front and back- in her scrapbook. Yes, that's it! Her scrapbook! She could prove that she wasn't crazy. But not now.. It would probably be better to try and make a good second first impression on the Tsukinos.  
"Heh.. Well, I suppose something must be very wrong with me then!" Hotaru decided that a laughable sarcastic reply would be the best one to lighten up the subject of her sanity.   
Despite the rocky beginning, the picnic turned out quite wonderfully. And though Hotaru never could fully take her mind of Usagi's party, she at least could honestly say she had a fabulous time.  
Interestingly enough, Shingo had cooked the entire meal. "No one will believe me when I report a better chef than Mako-chan exists," Hotaru thought with a smile. More than the food, however, the girl couldn't help but notice the way that Shingo looked at her. Whenever she caught his eyes with her own, he would quickly dart them to the darkening sky or the glistening lake and blush slightly. She was used to people staring at her. In fact, she couldn't remember a day when somebody didn't stare. But this was different. These looks didn't make her cringe, or want to disappear. These looks made her feel safe and loved like she'd never been before.  
Shingo was just as enchanted with the petite brunette as she was with him. The only times he could bare to take his green-teal eyes of her was when she would catch him staring and embarrassed, he'd pretend it never happened.  
The evening ended to the dismay of both couples. Though the teenagers took little notice, Kenji and Ikuko Tsukino had an equally good time and hurried to the car before their son as if it would make them return home quicker.  
Hotaru and Shingo walked slowly back to her car secretly savoring every moment in each other's presence. Meanwhile, the hot day had become a warm night. The sky's blackness only lit by a small sliver of a crescent moon and the millions of stars that shone like silver glitter spilled on to black construction paper, a toddler's priceless piece of artwork.  
"Tomorrow Night?" Hotaru broke the enveloping silence with her soft voice. "Take me here tomorrow night. And the next, every night. Every night from now 'till forever. I want to relive these moments for the rest of my life, until eternity ends and the universe is baron and empty."  
What did she just hear herself say? How could she have been this bold? Until today, they'd hardly spoken three words to each other. "Kami-sama, please let the world end now!" She pleaded in her mind to the all mighty deity.  
"From now 'till forever." Shingo kissed the cheek he had wanted to kiss so many times and quickly ran back to his parents' car in the middle of the lot.  
"He kissed me." The purple-eyed girl stood dumbfounded at the door of her black car for nearly a half an hour before she had the courage to pinch herself and risk waking up from her dream. "He kissed me." This was no dream. Reality had become heaven. Hotaru drove home in a lover's daze. "Tsukino Shingo kissed me..."  
  
***  
  
The week went on as un-normaly as the preceding day. Her classmates became her friends, Shingo picked her up every afternoon at six, her professors made her out to be a teacher's pet, and almost everything was great. On the not-so-perfect other hand, Michiru-mama and Haruka-papa were not home yet and had not even called, and Setsuna-mama should have been home on Wednesday and was apparently still at the Gates of Time, none of the senshi had answered the phone all week, and most confusing of all, her scrapbook was missing and she had no way to prove her sanity. If only the wrongs hadn't practically, well... completely out weighed the rights...  
But it was Saturday and Saturday meant dinner at the Chiba's. At last she could confide in someone who wouldn't think she was mad.  
Hotaru arrived at the apartment's door at precisely six thirty. And following her signature "shave and a haircut, two bits" knock turned the oval shaped knob to the door marked 14E, only to find it locked. This was odd. They never locked their doors when they were home. She ran her fingers across the top frame of the door until they reached a small silver key. Hotaru had spent many nights at the Chiba's house when her parents were away and knew how to get in.  
She fit the key in to the vertical hole in the knob and turned it clockwise until it clicked open. The lights were out. Uncertainly she entered the foyer tiled with blue/gray marble and flicked the light switch up. A mess! Hotaru had to check the number of the apartment to make sure it was the right one. Usagi had never been the perfect housekeeper, but a pig could keep a room cleaner than this!  
"Usagi-chan? Mamoru-san? Hello?" She tried to walk through the mess, toward the kitchen but could barely make it as it was nearly impossible to see the floor. The kitchen was no better than the rest of the house. Half-eaten cereal and milk sat, looking two days old in chipped and browning bowls. Two flies swarmed around the room before landing on a greening orange peel in the sink.  
Where were they? And more importantly, what was this?  
Her delicate nose barely standing the stench, Hotaru ran from the apartment and outside to the fresh (well fresher) air of the city. The sun was just setting and the sky was confused in deciding what colors to be. A violet color meshed in to the rosy-orange that surrounded the burning orb which was parallel in height to the electric sky scrappers, making the skyline stand out as no other had before.  
Alone and confused the small girl walked the sidewalks lining the traffic-full roads. When the sun hit her hair, you could tell that it had a violet tint to it. Through out the neighborhoods, the new and the run-down, past the small, privately owned shops and the gigantic chain stores, and past the indigo river that flowed through the center of Juuban, she wandered. Hotaru pondered how she could be suddenly so popular and yet still so alone.  
She had canceled her date with Shingo in order to keep the Chiba tradition alive. He had wanted to join her at his sister's but had been over-piled with homework and scholarship application forms. Even though she understood, Hotaru was secretly upset.  
Juuban Central Park  
It had seemed to her as though she hadn't wandered quite far away from the Chiba's building, but the sign in front of her proved otherwise. The cold hand in the pocket of her black jeans felt a yen between her fingers. Might as well keep tradition. Hotaru passed through the still open gates of the park toward the center fountain that she knew had to be there.  
Though she didn't realize it, a few hours had passed and the evening star had long since appeared along with several others.  
"Aaaghh!" The moan of pain could barely be heard through the mass of thick trees. Nevertheless, she cut across the thick grass, running toward the source of the cry. The maroon shirt, patterned across the bottom with pine green ivy, she wore snagged and finally tore on a briar as she shuffled through a bed of roses.  
"Damn, my favorite shirt," Hotaru clutched the right side of her stomach were the thorns had attacked her. Warm, sticky blood slowly began to flow. But she couldn't stop.  
She didn't know what made her run. She just did. Something in her just made Hotaru want to help, to heal. And since she had been born with a special gift for it...  
Finally she made it to the scene, or at least behind a tree at the scene. Slowly, she peeked her head out from behind the giant oak.  
"Honestly, what's the big deal? We'll have you fixed up in no time. So quit moaning!"  
"I can't help it!!!! It Hurts!!!! Ow! Could you be a little more gentle, please?"  
"It wouldn't hurt as much if you'd quit moving."  
"Can't Sailor Mercury or Tuxedo Kamen-sama fix me?"  
"She needs the practice..." "She needs to work on her gift..."  
"What gift?....." Usagi whispered scornfully.  
Hotaru stared in disbelief.... The Senshi.... In uniform.... Without her!!!!  
But the thing that startled her the most wasn't that she hadn't been called, nor that Sailor Moon was injured. It was the girl working on Moon wasn't Mars (as it sounded) but a girl with a slightly dazed expression wearing her fuku! Sailor Saturn's fuku!! This was Not right.  
"Guys? Who is she?" Hotaru made her presence known.  
The senshi assumed their attack positions after a split second of surprise.  
"I am Sailor Moon! I will right wrongs and-"  
"No, no..... You don't have to give me the official greeting/warning/whatever you want to call it... Who Is She?" Pointing to the red head in her fuku this time.  
The girl looked obliviously at Hotaru. She finally asked after a very lengthy pause, "Me?...."  
"Well of course you! Who are you? Why are you wearing my fuku? Why are you carrying my glaive? Who are You?!!" She was not in the mood to play games and yet she wasn't angry with the slightly moronic girl.  
"I am the Senshi of Death and Rebirth. I am Sailor Saturn." The girl's reply was a sorry one, not said with the usual grace and power that the senshi possessed.  
"No, you're not..." Hotaru informed her only slightly annoyed. She looked to her friends this time for help. "Who is she?"  
"She just told you... Who are you?.." Jupiter looked at the small, violet-eyed brunette, not knowing what to think.  
"Me?.. Hotaru, Tomoe Hotaru...." **awkward pause** "You know.... ME!! Sailor Saturn!!! Senshi of all that stuff, death, destruction, rebirth, silence, SATURN....! Ring a bell?" She felt through her pockets for her henshin, a piece of evidence.... Where was it? And what game were they playing?  
"Do you know her?" Venus whispered to Luna.  
"I'm at a loss." The purple-black cat replied.  
"Then how does she know us?"  
Hotaru was still searching her pockets for the violet henshin when she spotted the family she had missed for so long... They were back!!  
"Haruka-papa, Michiru-mama, Setsuna-mama! I've missed you!" Hotaru ran up to the three to tackle them with hugs, forgetting that her identity was on trial. But before she reached arm's length, Pluto swung her time key out in front of the teenager to stop her. Hotaru tumbled to the ground to prevent a head on collision with the staff.  
"Setsuna-mama, is this some kind of game? Why are you doing this to me.......don't you know me?" Hotaru had lost the slight angry edge in her voice; and now she spoke with timidity and fear.  
"Are we supposed to?" Sailor Uranus had only a minimal of the usual coldness in her voice as she spoke to the confused girl. Neptune noticed this and wondered why her partner would show such an unusual side of her personality to this stranger.  
"Oh, God... what is this? This really isn't a game is it? You're ...You're not playing..." Hotaru stumbled up to Sailor Moon and Mercury. "Ami, Usagi don't you recognize me? It's all a joke, right.....please........" With this, Hotaru collapsed in front of the two, unconscious.  
"She's bleeding!" Usagi knelt before the figure, ignoring her own wound that still stung throughout her body. She indicated a deep graze in the side of the girl where the rose's thorns had ferociously torn her fragile body.  
"I can treat this if we can get back to my house." Mercury examined the would with a doctor's eye.  
"But we don't know who she is!" Mars protested.  
"She seemed to know--" Venus turned around to find the Outer Senshi. "Well, they certainly left quickly and quietly." Indeed the Outers, excluding Saturn, were nowhere to be seen.  
"We can't just leave her like this!" Sailor Moon's gentle compassion for the stranger was evident in her dark blue eyes.  
"This is not something to take lightly." Luna spoke.  
"Luna's right." The silent Tuxedo Kamen cited. "She did seem to know all of us."  
"Not me!" The Sailor Saturn-imposter almost seemed proud.  
"We should take her to Ami's.." Jupiter cast her vote. "Even if she does pose a threat, she deserves to have her say."  
Mars knelt down beside Moon to have a better look at the girl who was posing such a mystery. Indeed, she was wounded badly (obviously by briars). But how briars could do this much damage was beyond her. "Ami, isn't you're mother still at your house? She can come to the temple. It'll be much safer for her there."  
Mars's sudden change in attitude surprised them all. But nobody could object. Tuxedo Kamen picked up the little adolescent in his arms and seven dark figures followed by two cats made their way back to the Hikawa Jinja as they had done for so many nights.  
  



	3. Another Wish

Ami looked at the sleeping enigma with warm, but questioning eyes. Though Rei had had everything that she had needed to mend the girl's (and Usagi's) wounds, she was still worried about the girl's mental health. Not that she thought mystery girl was crazy, but when Pluto had stopped her so suddenly the girl looked as if she might die. Ami knew what it felt like. The body goes numb and the world begins to blur. You lose all hope. She quickly pushed the thought from her mind. There's always hope.  
"Who is she? Why is she here?" Minako wondered silently. The poor girl, Hotaru she had said was her name, had known her... all of them. Of that she was sure. And they were supposed to know her... But how? Could she have been Sailor Saturn? No. That's impossible. They had already found the princess of that planet. Or had they?  
"She's running a fever," Usagi whispered as she pressed a cool, wet rag to the sleeping girl's forehead. "What's going to happen to her?"  
"She can't stay here much longer. Ojii-san is coming back from his conference tonight and he doesn't like strangers spending the night." Rei apologized. "Plus, she'll likely kill herself after he flirts with her," she added in her head. The rest of the girls thought this too but didn't dare say it.  
"Well, we have to keep an eye on her somehow, just in case. I don't think I was the only one to notice that she claimed to be Sailor Saturn." Makoto pointed out.  
"And saw through our disguises." Ami added  
"We'll it's about time somebody did. I was beginning to think that this entire city was dense! What's there to keep people from distinguishing us- a tiara and a really short skirt? Come on!" Minako joked.  
"Oh, is that fuku really shorter than the clothes you wear anyway, Minako-chan?"  
Usagi teased back.  
"Look whose talking!"  
"You guys... Sshhhh!" Ami whispered as she nudged Usagi and attracted the full attention of the rest of the girls. "The girl --Hotaru--; she's waking up."  
The world blurred slowly back into focus before Hotaru's minutely opened eyes. What a nightmare she had had. And the pain in her side, ouch! Most of her body wanted to go back to sleep, until it saw her slightly fuzzy friends hovered above her.  
"Guys, what are you doing here? Where am I? What happened?" Hotaru sounded a little drugged from her several hours of coma-like sleep.  
"We brought you here when you collapsed in the park. You seem to be suffering from loss of blood so don't try to move much." Ami's doctor-like tone couldn't hide the compassion she felt for her patient. She knew that this girl could mean trouble, but somehow she couldn't believe that to be possible.  
"I collapsed in the park?" Hotaru's eyes glazed over with a tint of worry. "Juuban Central Park?" All five senshi nodded. "Then it wasn't a nightmare... You really don't know me?"  
"....no...." Usagi said as she re-wet the cold rag and patted her patient's forehead.  
Tears flooded Hotaru's eyes and for well over two hours, all she could bare to do was cry. The only true friends she'd ever had didn't remember her at all. How could this have happened? What did she ever do to deserve this? She wished. That night. She remembered now. That night she had wished for the first time that she'd never been a senshi. And it was the next morning that things were different. Yes, of course she would have been popular if her odd gift of healing hadn't isolated her from others. Yes, teachers would like her if she hadn't always been absent after frequent beatings from her father. And Shingo. Yes, even she might have had a chance to be with the man of her dreams...if. If she had never been a senshi.  
But was it worth giving up her true friends? The ones who liked her despite her differences. Would Shingo have cared? Was he really one of the lemmings? Or one who cares, despite everything. Well, she knew one thing. He had never seemed to care before Monday. Oh, to have to choose between the two was impossible. Her love (even if it was only a lie) or her friends.  
The truth....  
"I wish I were Sailor Saturn again!" She cried aloud automatically. Again and again, she yelled the words until she was screaming them at the top of her lungs. But she remained unchanged, the useless words fell her feet. The world might as well have ended then forever for all she cared. What hope was left for her now?  
The five girls (who had left the room after Hotaru's request about an hour previous) ran into the room in a panic upon hearing her cries.  
"What?! What is it?" Usagi, the first to enter, was surprised to see the violet eyed girl tears now flowing softly down her face while sitting quietly in a chair.  
"It's all over now. I made a terrible wish, and it came true." Hotaru replied, emotionless.  
"Can't you un-wish it?" For some unknown reason, a part of Usagi believed her.  
"I tried. I wish I were Sailor Saturn again." She whispered now. She told her story as if she didn't care about what had just happened to her. When she finished the five other young women sat in an uncomfortable silence, afraid to speak as if it would shatter a world of glass that domed around them. Perhaps afraid to believe her. To find out that all of their own memories were lies. Stranger things had happened.  
"I know you can't believe me. I'm not asking you to anymore....I'll go now."  
"Please, stay." Usagi stood up to stop the girl.  
"You need to rest..." Ami supplied.  
"No, I---"  
"Please, just wait one moment..." The blonde odangoed girl pleaded with the violet eyes that looked dull and lifeless. Hotaru sat down and Usagi motioned her friends to the other side of the room. "What do you guys think?"  
"Well, her tale is pretty.... Remarkable." Mako-chan tried to piece the odd facts together unsuccessfully.  
"Ami, do you have any doubt about Hotaru's...um... mental wellness?" Rei tried to ask tactfully. She failed.  
"I can't say.. I know that I ought to refer her to a specialist... I don't know. Perhaps I just want to believe her."  
"It does sound so much better in her world. To think that we might have defeated everyone five years ago. That in her world we now can lead our normal lives again. That Mamo-chan is.....my husband...."  
"No time for dreaming, Usagi. Although I have got to admit that Osaka Naru makes a pretty bad Sailor Saturn." Rei barely contained laughter at the thought. "Even Ami will agree to that."  
The girl with indigo hair blushed redder that her friends had seen her blush before. "Well...I.... I mean..... She is... No, that's not it... I might have said something to the effect of.....What about Hotaru?!" She scarcely escaped with her life.  
"She can live with me until we figure this out." Usagi's statement was not even a suggestion.  
"Usagi! We don't know anything about this girl." Luna, who had learned years ago that it was just better to let the girls decide what to do in these matters, could stay silent no longer.  
"We know that her name is Tomoe Hotaru and that she is in a lot of pain." Usagi defended.  
"You're parents will never let a strange girl just come to live in your house." Makoto pointed out.  
"Mako-chan, my mother has on not one, but two occasions let strange girls live in my house for long periods of time."  
"Usagi, she was made to believe that they were your cousin and your sister. Some how I don't think she'll do that again." But Makoto's words came too late. Usagi had already gone over to the girl (who was now asleep) and whispered in her ear, "You're going to live with me for a little while, okay?" And no one could deny that the slumbering Hotaru had answered with a small nod.  
  
***  
  
As Hotaru slept heavily under the bunny covered sheets, Usagi sat watching her and quietly spoke words that she knew were lost on the raven-haired girl. "There's something about you that I don't understand. I know in my head that you're probably some evil villain that will only try and destroy the world, but... But... I just can't make myself really believe that. I know this sounds stupid, but in my heart, I think you might be who you say you are."  
The rising sun caught Usagi's eye as it glistened off of the glass of a picture frame containing an old photo of her best friends. Her blue eyes scanned the familiar and smiling faces. But who was that? A new figure she'd never seen was sitting and laughing among the group. She removed it from the glass to further examine it. The figure looked like the sleeping girl... But the most disturbing thing was that you could see through it. She looked back and forth from Hotaru to the picture, unable to believe the obvious truth. Hotaru was in her photograph!!  
The girl in her bed turned over, shattering the complete silence that once had filled the room and almost gave Usagi a heart attack. She looked again at the picture, but the figure was gone and replaced with another. Where Hotaru had stood, Naru now sat, smiling the exact same way and yet, only reminding her how annoying the redhead was. What the?!  
"I'm seeing things now... Oh, well, that's what lack of sleep will do to you," The odangoed girl told herself. The fact was that Usagi hadn't slept all night. She was too worried. Worried for Hotaru. Worried for the rest of her friends, for herself. Life hadn't been easy recently and she didn't know how long she could keep up the strength to continue this seemingly endless battle. Usagi sighed and placed the picture back in the frame. She picked up the bowl of chicken-noodle soup she had prepared and sat down at the end of her bed wishing the sleeping girl would awaken.  
Slyly she pulled open the blinds of the window above the bed in order to use the full effect of the sun to her advantage. It worked.  
Hotaru squeezed her closed eyes tighter and rolled back under the pink satin pillow while letting out a soft moan as the blinding sun's fingers touched her pale face. She knew this time that she had not been dreaming and wanted now more than ever to stay in her pleasant world of slumber. Only when her head was buried safely under the protection of the pillow did she dare to open her eyes to examine her new surroundings.  
"AAAHHHHH!!!"  
The sight of Usagi pirched at the end of the bed holding a bowl of noodly-something-or-other and the wide grin that spread across her face was actually quite frightening. Perhaps the more frightening thing, though, was that Usagi was awake before someone.  
"Kami-sama, I must have REALLY slept in!" Hotaru thought to herself.  
"I made you some chicken soup!" The fact that Hotaru had just been scared out of her wits somehow managed to escape the blonde. Usagi had wanted to talk to the girl for forever now and was not planning to waste any time. "With this special recipe, you'll feel better in no time flat."  
The violet-eyed girl practically jumped at the soup. Usagi's cooking had always been wonderful. "Thank you. I really can't tell you how much I-- ACK!- appreciate-- HESC!- all of-- GULP!- this. ..GASP.." Horrible!! The so-called-soup was obviously sent from the depths of hell just to torture her! When the senshi would joke about Usagi's "pre-marriage cooking" she never thought they REALLY meant it. Never mind the pre-mentioned thanks; she was trying to kill her!  
"This is really happening, isn't it?" Hotaru starred down at the soup in her lap as she played with it with the spoon.  
"I'd like to help you." Usagi blurted out, ignoring the question.  
"Why?..." The younger girl set the bowl down and rolled back under the covers, "You don't even know me."  
"I know what pain is. I know your someone who's obviously been through a lot of sadness and struggle." She slowly pulled the bunny-covered blanket from her head. "Besides, if you really do turn out to be --- Sailor Saturn--- everybody wins!"  
"What do you mean?"  
"Well, just between you and me---- Osaka Naru is the worst senshi in the world."  
"Osaka Naru? The Naru I know? The one whose mother owns the Osa-P jewelry store?" At this both girls, though each had taken to heart different memories, fell of the bed in a fit of laughter so strong that each time they looked at each other it would start all over again.  
  
***  
  
"Damn it! She actually believes her!" A plain looking ten-year old girl with orange red hair flung herself onto her bed.  
"Like that's my fault! I did everything you asked me too." Another girl answered. She was fourteen and much prettier with her chocolate hair nearly reaching her waist.  
"Well if you had done your job and kept her away from the park she would never have run into them."  
"But you never asked me to--"  
"How am I going to destroy them if you keep messing up my plan?" (ha! a plan! like Nakago... sorry, wrong anime!)  
"It's a stupid plan if you ask me." The brunette said under her breath.  
"What?!"  
"I'm just saying that I think it's pointless to try and defeat them, especially with such a senseless idea."  
"Can you think of anything better?"  
"No. But others have, and they failed. What makes you think you'll be different?"  
"Because I know something they didn't. Their wishes. What do you think would happen if every senshi got their wish granted? Complete pandemonium! It would be impossible to defeat me. Don't you get it? They're practically begging me to do it!"  
"Kami, you really are daft! Come on, let's go get some ice cream."  
"Your treat?"  
"Sure."  
"Race ya there!"  
  
***  
  
Mizuno Ami lay on her couch staring up at the ceiling tiles and tried to graph a fly on it. She came to a sudden realization of what she was doing and quickly sat up to continue a chess game that she had started with herself a few days ago.  
"I am such a brain." She picked up one of the little pawns squeezed it in her palm until she knew she had bruised herself.  
"Guess who!" A pair of ivory hands fell over Ami's sea blue eyes.  
"Jonathan Davis!"  
"You wish! Come on, I'm heading out to the hospital. Whadyasay we take a break from life and go out to breakfast? Just you and me- girls day (or morning at least) out."  
"Sorry Mom, I'd love to but I've got a lot of extra work to do before med-school tomorrow."  
"Party pooper! One day, Ami, your going to realize what you're missing!" Ms. Mizuno said as she closed the door.  
"And what's that?" Her daughter called back.  
"A life!" A faint voice called through the door.  
A life. She almost wondered what that was for a minute. She spent most of her time either fighting evil or doing extra work she requested from the teacher. What was her problem?  
"I'm smart." Ami answered her own question aloud. All of her life she had been put in advanced classed and praised for her genius. She was the teacher's pet in all of her classes and her papers were used as examples for the class constantly. And she loved it. It was fantastic to have her peers ask her for help and regard her as someone who deserved respect. She loved to figure out tough problems like puzzles and then reward herself with another problem. She had fun. She had a life.   
She scanned the chessboard in front of her. The little castles were here favorites. Some times Ami would imagine herself a princess atop one of the rooks waiting for her knight to come and rescue her. But there was no castle and there was no knight, only herself, her books, and a chessboard.  
"I wish I weren't so smart." The Asian beauty whispered as she pulled her knees up to her chest and rocked herself. "That's it. I could have a life and fun. REAL fun. Not these stupid numbers and marble figures. Mom!!" Ami quickly stood up and rushed for her coat at the door. If she hurried she could just catch up with her in time for breakfast.  
"Mom!" Ami called again as she made her way down the busy city sidewalks.  
"Ami?" Ms. Mizuno turned around with a start. " I thought you had to study." "That can wait. I need some time to loosen up. So, is breakfast still on?"  
"If you say so... Are you sure everything's alright?"  
"Of course!" Was she really that predictable... No, that was the old Ami.  
"So what are ya hungry for?" The still baffled mother questioned.  
"Mmmm.. And egg sandwich." Ami's mind reveled in the thought of it. Perfectly toasted bread and a tiny bit of mayonnaise, a dash of salt and pepper and a warm fried egg to top the perfection off.  
"Well that's one thing that hasn't changed!" Mom joked. "Can't you just eat food without it being on top of bread, like normal people?"  
"Okay!" The sandwich left her mind as quickly as it had entered.  
"No Ami. I didn't mean that you--"  
"No mom, your right. Sandwiches are so boring." Reliable, she thought but boring none-the-less. Chocolate ice cream will do nicely... "Let's have an ice cream."  
"For breakfast?" Not wanting to fuel another mini-rebellion in her confused daughter, Ms. Mizuno left it at that.  
The two, with out thinking, walked toward the park having, what Ami believed, to be the best time they'd ever spent together. The rest of the morning was spent like that. Even after her mom finally left for work, Ami never went home. And instead wandered the streets and back alleyways of Tokyo, ate five dark chocolate ice-cream cones & raspberry slushy, got a stomach ache and loved it. There was only one thing missing.  
"Mako-chan..." She thought aloud. No, she'll want to cook for me and I can't eat another thing. Usagi has that Hotaru girl over... We'll go out for a movie or something. And with that the indigo-haired girl headed back for home. Wherever that was...  
And just exactly where was she? Ami looked around. No, this was definitely not a familiar area. "Well, I'll just leave the way I came." She thought to herself. But where was that? "This isn't right. I don't get lost." But she was lost. And this was right, whether she knew it or not.  
And suddenly, for the first (but certainly not the last) time, Ami Mizuno, straight-A-honor-student, computer prodigy, missed her chess pieces and textbook more than ever. At least they were solid, constant, and immutable, not this random insane mess, not lost.  
"Are you okay?" A cute little red head who appeared to be about 10 or 11 shook Ami from her reverie with her words.  
"Hehh.. Yeah, I'm just a little lost." The embarrassed pre-med student couldn't believe what she was saying.  
"Would you like to sit down with my friend and me while you get your bearings?" The new girl pointed to where an older girl, maybe 13 or 14 sat enjoying an apple under a tree and watching her friend with an annoyed and careless attitude.  
"Thank you, but--" Things began to get dark.  
"Miss?"  
The last thing Ami saw before she passed out was the little red head above her, with a twisted smile on her face.  
  



End file.
